Visiontek out of business

[camaro]

http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MzM5

I wonder if they're going to have sales. It's a crowded market anyhow.

[EvilRick]

And I just bought an Xtasy 6564 a couple of months ago!

[camaro]

That's right, some people have those mail in rebates and lifetime warranty. Bad news for them. Visiontek was the number one seller. MSI is probably going to be the biggest maker of nvidia boards now. I never realized Visiontek was so much bigger then the rest.

[woodbutcher]

The sad fact is that this is another USA company going down the drain! Where is this country headed?

[neodave]

I guess this is one of those times where 'lifetime warranty' is based on the companys life and not the products.

[Juan Sanchez]

Looks like history is repeating itself. nVidia is on its way to go down like 3dfx before it and Rendition before that. Visiontek produced like %40 of nVidias cards. When ever I go to Best Buy or CompUsa all I see are Visiontek or ATI cards, now with Visiontek out ATI can be #1 for the next 3-4 years. I see nVidia having a slower more painful death then 3dfx did.....maybe not more painful but definetly slow. Heck after ATI goes in 2008 SiS, Trident, or maybe Matrox will be #1, seems to be the way things go in the Vidcard industry, once a company hits #1 status it is then overshadowed by a competitor and crushed in terms of performance and assosiation. Joe anybody is starting to see ATI as the #1 vid card, when I shop at best buy and see some red neck pick up a Radeon 7500 because his nephew told him that on the internet the ATI Radeon 9700 is the best card right now and Joe anybody goes to best buy and only remembers the ATI and Radeon part of the name and picks up what he thinks is a deal.

[dunbar]

The hardocp link is stalling this AM, will try again later.

EDIT: here is the article, cut and paste:

VisionTek : Going...going...GONE! The number one seller of NVIDIA based VidCards is shutting its doors, or rather having them shut.

Sunday, August 18, 2002
Date

Video Card
Categories

VisionTek
Manufacturers

Kyle Bennett
Author

While VisionTek experienced some problems earlier this year with financial debt, it was thought that all was going well for this U.S. based company from Northern Illinois. We have come to find out this weekend that all is far from well at one of our fave VidCard builders. It seems as though VisionTek is in utter financial shambles and a trustee has been appointed to come in and liquidate all the assets of the company.

Bankruptcy no. Foreclosure yes. It is understood that the trustee is there in order to recoup as much money from the current VisionTek assets in order to pay back dept to the bank(s) with interest in this matter. So what is seems will happen is that VisionTek will simply cease to exist.

VisionTek was currently in motion to move it’s manufacturing to either China or Taiwan in order to cut costs associated with its products. VisionTek has also been currently diversifying their product lines to include non-VidCard related items. All seemed to be looking up for VisionTek. While this information does come from a very credible source even the information they had was a bit slim, but it was not ruled out that improper business practices was something that put the last nail in the coffin.

With VisionTek simply vanishing, this leaves a huge gap for NVIDIA to fill. VisionTek was the number one retailer of NVIDIA based VidCards in North America. Hercules has moved to ATi products, Creative is gone for NVIDIA as well with the purchase of 3dLabs, and Elsa's (which is now bankrupt) top-end VidCards were built by VisionTek anyway.

PNY is still here in the USA, but I simply think they lack the production capabilities or market savvy to deliver for NVIDIA even though they already have penetration into the larger retail channels. The smaller guys like Gainward, eVGA, MSI, Leadtek, and even possibly such companies as Prolink, ABIT, or Inno3D have a shot to help get cards to market for NVIDIA. It will be very interesting to see how this plays out, but it would seem that PNY would be best positioned to immediately take the NVIDIA North American Sales Crown.

One thing is for sure; this could not come at a worse time for NVIDIA. They are desperately trying to get their NV28 and NV30 chipsets to market before the Christmas buying season ends and they have just lost their biggest card builder that pumps their chipsets into the retail channels in North America. We have heard that NVIDIA has been doing everything it can to keep VisionTek afloat and that would make perfect sense.

ATi will start shipping its Radeon 9700 Pro card on Monday and we have some reports that they started shipping late last week. ATi already has tremendous shelf space with the major US retailers and this is going to do nothing but give them more room to work with. ATi was already poised to take a significant amount of market share from NVIDIA and this VisionTek development is certainly something that will weigh in on that even more.

Thanks to all the guys at VisionTek that have supported us over the last year and thanks to VisionTek for bringing a great product to market. Now that VisionTek is gone, to whom is NVIDIA going to turn.

EDIT: on Aug 20, hardOCP link above shows a response:

UPDATE!

VisionTek has responded this afternoon (Monday, August 19, 2002) with the following statment.

Here is our official statement in reaction to HardOCP.com's recent post:

"An Assignee / Trustee has been appointed, and will attempt to maximize the value of the company's assets. His belief is that the assets have a higher value as a "turn-key" operation than in a liquidation. The Trustee is continuing to operate the company to determine if a sale is a viable alternative to a liquidation, and he is currently talking to interested parties. The company is continuing to take orders, ship products, and honor rebates."

John Malley
Director of Marketing & PR
VisionTek

[Xster]

Geez...this is terrible. I was always under the impression that if a company got to 1st place, and had a good reputation and continued building good products, it would stay there.

[dunbar]

bump since edits do not push to top....

[vass0922]

Well don't forget one reason 3dfx took a dive, is because they only supported Glide, and that code base just wasn't as good as the newer guys like DirectX and OpenGL. Nvidia 100% supports both so I don't think Nvidia is going anywhere, anytime soon. They do have the superior drivers and they also actually support drivers for linux which is a help, even if it is a niche market. Just because one company goes down does not mean the rest will as well. Chances are they tried to make a few shady deals that bombed on them, or made afew too many loans they shouldn't have...
Bad business, not necessarily bad products ... big difference

it was not ruled out that improper business practices was something that put the last nail in the coffin
Need I say more?

[EvilRick]

Just noticed their latest "Breaking News" was two months ago. These guys don't seem to be letting anything out of the bag either.

[Juan Sanchez]

yeh, don't forget nVidias new C for graphics (Cg) they're trying to push on everyone, no that doesn't sound like 3dfx at all did with glide, no way. The only smart thing nVidia didn't do was buy out Visiontek because if they did they'd end up the same way 3dfx did when they bought STD.

[agathodaimon]

that really sucks...
I've been pretty impressed with Visiontek's products... too bad for them. (well, I should say, too bad for us!)

[EvilRick]

It seems Visiontek has graced Kyle at [H]ardOCP with some more info.

[ScreenHints]

I guess this is one of those times where 'lifetime warranty' is based on the companys life and not the products.

They had to wait until right after I got my Geforce 4. . .that lifetime warranty did look like a nice selling point.

[thekingofpain]

I would still buy one even tho---killer cards...cant get one much better at the moment...

Get em while you can!!!...

[EvilRick]

I agree...I just want my $30 rebate!

[radio1_mike]

Please look at link again, there is a addendum response from VisionTek stating that...

Well, maybe the won't have to shoot Ol' Yeller after all...

Which I hope is true, VisionTek made quality boards and they always had awesome customer service.

[dunbar]

Selling a turn-key operation does not mean keeping the visiontek line pumping. It might mean that, but might also mean that Trident gets to buy a decent product line of graphics cards, or maybe Packard Bell will rise yet again, etc. Turn-key sales usually infer "put your name here".

Glad to hear the rebates will still be honored - I do not await a rebate from them, but hey, $30 is not chickenfeed.

[ragtop]

Boy that sux - The Visiontek GF3 Ti200 in my brother's computer just died last night (the fan failed & apparently caused the chip to fry).

I hope they're still honoring their warantees - at least for a little while. (My brother doesn't have the cash for a new vid card, and he can't do much gaming with the old TNT2 that I'm letting him use)

Anyone have any experience with the RMA system at Visiontek??